FSA looks to speed up client returns after investment firm failures

In a combined consultation and discussion paper issued today, the FSA set out how it will implement changes required by the European Markets Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) to protect client money. However, it has also proposed to go further, in what it described as the "most radical change that has been made to the client money regime in over 20 years". Instead of all client money being treated as part of a single pool in the insolvency of an investment firm, the new regime would allow firms, with their clients' agreement, to operate legally and operationally separate client money s...